Constitution of New York

“ Has not each State a right to amend her own Constitution and establish a genuine republic within her own boundaries? "Let each man mend one," says the old proverb, "and the world is mended." Let each State bring its own Constitution into harmony with the Federal Constitution, and the Union will be a republic.
We are soon to hold a convention to revise the Constitution of the State of New York; and it is the duty of the people to insist that it be so amended as to make all its citizens equal before the law. ”

“ It is not beyond reasonable assumption that the citizens of New York may amend their state constitution and forbid their legislature to enact any statutes interfering with the freedom of the citizens of New York, in any way, on the matter which is the subject of the Eighteenth Amendment. ”

“ New York has no Bill of Rights, and her Constitution says not a word about the matter. No Bills of Rights appear annexed to the Constitutions of the other States, except the foregoing, and their Constitutions are equally silent. ”

“ In this respect the laws of New York vary in nothing material from those of South Carolina. By the twenty-fifth article of the constitution of New York of 1777, the common law of England is adopted into the jurisprudence of the state. By the principles of that law, the demandant owed allegiance to the king of Great Britain, as of his province of New York. By the revolution that allegiance was transferred to the state, and the common law declares that the individual cannot put off his allegiance by any act of his own. ”

“ The interests of the state of New-York are probably as well understood by its sixty-five representatives, as those of Massachusetts by its three or four hundred. In fact, higher qualifications will usually be sought and required, where the representatives are few, than where they are many. And there will also be a higher ambition to serve, where the smallness of the number creates a desirable distinction, than where it is shared with many, and of course individual importance is essentially diminished. ”

“ The absence of violent democratic innovations was the Constitution's remarkable feature. Although a product of the Revolution, framed to meet the necessities growing out of that great event, its general provisions were decidedly conservative. The right of suffrage was so restricted that as late as 1790 only 1303 of the 13,330 male residents of New York City possessed sufficient property to entitle them to vote for governor. Even the Court of Chancery remained undisturbed, notwithstanding royal governors had created it in opposition to the wishes of the popular assembly. ”

“ The only limitation upon the freedom of a State to define the jurisdiction of its own courts is that implied by Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution, whereby 'The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.' The Constitution does not require New York to give jurisdiction to its courts against its will. ”

“ Each and all alike declare rights God-given, and that to secure the people in the enjoyment of their inalienable rights, is their one and only object in ordaining and establishing government. And all of the State constitutions are equally emphatic in their recognition of the ballot as the means of securing the people in the enjoyment of these rights. Article 1 of the New York State Constitution says:
No member of this State shall be disfranchised or deprived of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers. ”

“ But, not alone by reason of the apathy and the discord which existed among the nominal friends of the proposed Constitution, nor of the harmonious and energetic opposition of those who disapproved its provisions, nor of the numerical weakness of the former when compared with the strength and perfect organization of the latter, was the position which New York then occupied so peculiar, and at the same time so important. ”

“ Unless the free voters act, and act quickly, the true government of the United States in general, and of New York in particular, will not rest in the President or Congress, in Mayors and Boards of Aldermen, in the Constitution, the charter, or the courts: it will rest in a combination of Big Business interests that will control the men elected as representatives of the people. ”

“ It is indeed hard for New Yorkers to realize, as they live to-day under the Stars and Stripes, having forgotten what their State flag is, and being among the most zealous supporters of the Union, that their State led the opposition to the Constitution, and that but for the influence of a very few men in two other States, New York might have prevented the consummation of that "more perfect union." ”

“ Every sovereign has the exclusive right to command within his territory; and the laws which originate rights to real property are commands addressed to the members of the State, requiring them to abstain from any interference with the proprietary right they recognise or establish; and in respect to this subject the sovereignty of New York has not been impaired by her adoption of the Federal Constitution. ”

“ Jersey is so near unanimity in her favorable opinion, that we may count with certainty on something more than votes, should the state of affairs hereafter require the application of pointed arguments. New York, hemmed in between the warm friends of the Constitution, will not easily, unless supported by powerful states, make any important struggle, even though her citizens were unanimous, which is by no means the case. ”

“ The power, therefore, is not to be confined by state lines but acts upon its subject-matter wherever it is to be found. “It may, of consequence, pass the jurisdictional line of New York and act upon the very waters to which the prohibition now under consideration applies.” ”

“ It offers a necessity [Pg 593] of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it. New York has the physical power to cut off all the water within its jurisdiction. But clearly the exercise of such a power to the destruction of the interest of lower States could not be tolerated. And, on the other hand, equally little could New Jersey be permitted to require New York to give up its power altogether in order that the river might come down to it undiminished. ”

“ In reliance upon the Due Process Clause of our Constitution, the Court strikes deep into the authority of New York to protect its local governmental institutions from influences of officials whose conduct does not meet the declared state standards for employment. This New York City Charter, § 903, adopted in 1936 to take effect in 1938, was designed to eliminate from public employment individuals who refused to answer legally authorized inquiries as to the 'official conduct of any officer or employee of the city * * * on the ground that his answer would tend to incriminate him'. ”

“ The demand for Home Rule for the city, often repeated, does not seem to be supported in earnest by either party. Both admit the need for it. But neither seem willing to risk anything to obtain it. The Charter of the Greater New York sprang from the Commission appointed in 1896 to consider and report upon the proposed consolidation and unification of the government of the great urban area now known as Greater New York. ”

“ However, inasmuch as the authority with which the society sought to be invested had reference to public justice, and involved the power to appear for the defence of the interests of others, and to require the coöperation of public officials, a law was indispensable, in order to confer these powers. Such a law was passed August 21, 1875, whose provisions covered not only the case of the New York society, but determined the functions of all institutions of a similar nature. ”

“ To a majority of the people, New York appeared to be surrendering natural advantages in much larger measure than other Commonwealths, while its concession of political power struck them as not unlikely to endanger the personal liberty of the citizen and the independence of the State. ”

“ As of 1961, the Constitutions of all but 11 States, roughly 20% of the total, recognized bases of apportionment other than geographic spread of population, and to some extent favored sparsely populated areas by a variety of devices, ranging from straight area representation or guaranteed minimum area representation to complicated schemes of the kind exemplified by the provisions of New York's Constitution of 1894, still in effect until struck down by the Court today in No. ”